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Book. 








STATUE OF NATHANIEL P. BANKS. 



A RECORD 



DEDICATION OF THE STATUE 

OP 

MAJOR GENERAL 

NATHANIEL PRENTISS BANKS 

September - 16 - 1908 




BOSTON: PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR AND 
COUNCIL : WRIGHT AND POTTER PRINTING COMPANY 
STATE PRINTERS : : : NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NINE 









D. OF D. 

SEP 2 f910 






CONTENTS 



Resolve of the General Court 7 

Orders of the Governor's Council ] ] 

Programme 15 

Address by Hon. Seward W. Jones 19 

Address by His Honor Eben S. Draper, Lieutenant Governor, Acting 

Governor 23 

Address by Hon. Herbert Parker 29 



RESOLVE 

OF THE GENERAL COURT 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 



Commonwealth of Massachusetts 



CHAPTER 79. RESOLVES OF 1897 



RESOLVE 



TO PROVIDE FOR THE ERECTION OF A 
STATUE TO MAJOR GENERAL BANKS 

T3ESOLVED, That there be allowed and paid out of the 
treasury of the Commonwealth a sum not exceeding twenty 
thousand dollars, to be expended under the direction of the gov- 
ernor and council for the erection of a statue of Major-General 
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, in the state house or on the grounds of 
the state house ; and the governor and council are authorized to 
take such steps as are necessary to cause such a statue to be pre- 
pared, to select the position in which the same is to be placed, 
zind cause the same to be erected. 



Approved May 28, 1897 



ROGER WOLCOTT, 

Governor 



ORDERS 

OF THE GOVERNORS COUNQL 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 



Commonwealth of Massachusetts 



COUNCIL CHAMBER 



Boston, Jan. 2, 1902 

/^RDERED, That the model and pedestal in plaster of a 
^"•^ statue of Major-General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, submitted 
by Henry H. Kitson, be approved; the statue to be cast in 
bronze and placed upon a foundation otherwise provided for, not 
to exceed the sum of $18,000. It is understood that during the 
construction of the VN^orking model the sculptor will invite the co- 
operation and criticism of the Conunittee on State House of the 
Executive Council before the work has been finished. 

Adopted in Council, Jan. 2, 1902 

EDWARD F. HAMLIN, 

Executive Secretary 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 



Commonwealth of Massachusetts 



COUNCIL CHAMBER 



In Council, Aug. 5, 1908 

\ 70TED, To unveil and dedicate the statue of General N. P. 
' Banks on Wednesday, September 16, at 2 P.M. Also to 
engage Hon. Herbert Parker to deliver the address on that 
occasion. 



Adopted 



EDWARD F. HAMLIN, 

Executive Secretary 



12 



PROGRAMME 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 



PROGRAMME 

THE UNVEIUNG OF THE STATUE ON THE STATE 
HOUSE GROUNDS 

AT 2 P.M. 

1 March. " General Banks " fifth regiment band of waltham 

2 Presentation of the Statue to 

the Commonwealth by hon. seward w. jones 

Chairman State House Committee 

3 Unveiling of the Statue by paul sterling, jr. 

Grandson of General Banks 

4 Acceptance of the statue by his honor eben s. draper 

Lieutenant Governor, Acting Governor 

5 Prayer by rev. paul sterling 

6 Music, " America " BY fifth regiment band of waltham 



EXERCISES IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

AT 2.30 P.M. 

1 Selections by fifth regiment band of waltham 

2 Oration by hon, Herbert parker 

3 Music. "General Banks March" fifth regiment band of waltham 

4 Benediction by rev. paul sterling 

15 



ADDRESS 

BT 

Hon. Seward w. Jones 

Chairman Committee on State House of the Executive Council 



\ 




HON. SEWARD W. JONES, CHAIRMAN, STATE HOUSE COMMITTEE. 




ADDRESS 

By Hon. Seward w. Jones 

Elxecutive Councillor 

OUR Honor — The Great and General Court 
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, by 
^ chapter 79 of the Resolves of the year 1897, 
approved by Gov. Roger Wolcott, and chapter 291 of 
the Acts of the year 1900, approved by Gov. Winthrop 
Murray Crane, provided an appropriation for the erection 
of a statue of the statesman and soldier, which we dedi- 
cate to-day. 

By these resolves the execution of the work and the 
selection of the site were intrusted to the Governor and 
Council, and in accordance therewith a contract was 
entered into with the artist on Jan. 15, 1902, and this 
site selected. 

I have the honor, as chairman of the State House 
committee of the Honorable Council of this year, offi- 
cially to report to you, sir, the completion of the work 
intrusted to our care, and, further, to deliver to you, as 
Acting Governor of the Commonwealth, this memorial, 
erected by the people of Massachusetts to one of our 

19 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

most highly honored citizens, who in time of war served 
his country with distinction, and in time of peace served 
the Commonwealth and the nation in high positions of 
trust, — Governor, Major General, Nathaniel Prentiss 
Banks. 



20 



ADDRESS 

BY 

HIS HONOR EBEN S. DRAPER 

Lieutenant Governor, Acting Governor 



/ 




HIS HONOR EBEN S. DRAPER, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR, 
ACTING GOVERNOR. 




ADDRESS 

BY HIS HONOR LIEUT. GOV. EBEN S. DRAPER 

|R. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — In 
accepting for the Commonwealth the statue 
of General Banks, I desire to express my 
appreciation of the services of the committee who have 
carried this work to a successful conclusion. 

There are very few men in the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts who have had a longer, more varied or 
conspicuously successful career than did Nathaniel P. 
Banks. Born in Waltham on the 30th of January, 1816, 
he had only the advantages of a common school edu- 
cation. He worked in a cotton mill of the city of 
Lowell, of which his father was superintendent, and 
because of the work he did there he was afterward 
frequently called the "bobbin boy of Massachusetts." 

In 1849 he was elected to represent his town in the 
Massachusetts Legislature. At this time the power of 
the Whig party was waning in New England, and the 
Free Soil party was beginning to have considerable in- 
fluence. Mr. Banks advocated a coalition between the 
Free Soil party and the Democrats, and as a result 
of this coalition he was elected speaker of the Massa- 

23 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

chusetts House of Representatives in 1851, and re-elected 
in 1852. 

At this time he was elected a delegate to the Massa- 
chusetts constitutional convention, and in 1853 he was 
elected to Congress as a coalition Democrat. Soon after 
he withdrew from the Democratic party and identified 
himself with the American party, and was re-elected to 
Congress by an overwhelming vote. At this time he 
was nominated for speaker of the national House, and 
after a contest, which lasted more than two months, he 
was finally elected speaker on the one hundred and 
thirty-third ballot. 

Political parties at this particular time were becoming 
much split up and new parties were being formed rapidly, 
and at about this period he severed his connection with 
the other parties and became a Republican, and was 
elected to the thirty-fifth Congress by a larger majority 
than he had received before. 

Preceding the Presidential election of 1856 the Amer- 
ican party held a national convention, from which a 
substantial number of delegates seceded, and General 
Banks of Massachusetts and William F. Johnson of 
Pennsylvania were nominated by these seceders as candi- 
date, respectively, for President and Vice-President. It 
was in this year that Fremont was nominated by the 
Republicans as their first candidate for the Presidency, 
and Buchanan was the Democratic nominee. General 
24 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

Banks declined this nomination for the Presidency from 
one section of the American party. 

In 1857 he was elected Governor of Massachusetts, 
and was re-elected in 1858 and 1859. 

After he had finished his term as Governor of Massa- 
chusetts, he accepted the Presidency of the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad, in 1860, but when the Civil War began 
he resigned his office there and was commissioned as a 
major-general of volunteers in the army, and was assigned 
to the command of a corps in the Army of the Potomac. 
He served for several years in the army, and took part 
in many severe battles. At one time he was in com- 
mand of the department of New Orleans, and at another 
time was in command of the department of Washington. 

He was not relieved of his command until 1864, and 
returning to Massachusetts he was re-elected to Congress, 
and was continuously re-elected until 1877, except in 
1872, when he was active in the support of Horace 
Greeley for the Presidency. He was later elected to 
the fifty-first Congress, from 1889 to 1891. 

I have given this statement of the various offices and 
positions of great responsibility to which he was elected 
and filled to recall to the minds of the people the great 
and varied services which he rendered to his State and 
to the nation. I shall not attempt any estimate of his 
character or ability; this will be done, much more ably 
than I could do it, by the distinguished gentleman who 

25 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

is the orator of the day ; but any citizen of the Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts who had been so contin- 
uously honored by her people must have been worthy, 
and it is proper and fitting that such a one, who received 
great honors from the people while living, should be 
honored and commemorated in a lasting way by the 
citizens of the Commonwealth when dead. 

It therefore seems to me most appropriate that this 
splendid statue should have been erected by the citizens 
of the Commonwealth to commemorate the memory of 
Nathaniel P. Banks, and as Acting Governor I consider 
myself honored, and take pleasure in accepting this 
statue. 



26 



ADDRESS 



HON. HERBERT PARKER 




HON. HERBERT PARKER, ORATOR. 




ADDRESS 

By Hon. Herbert Parker 

HE grateful affection of Massachusetts does 
not suffer the memory of her distinguished 
sons, or their high service in her nzune, to 
fade and perish in her heart; nor will she permit the 
laurels she has proudly set upon their uplifted brows to 
wither in the dust of forgetfulness. 

This stately memorial ceremony, this assembly of her 
people, declare that she holds in tenderest thought and 
remembrance an honored son whose achievements have 
become a part of her own enduring fame. No spoken 
word of eulogy is needed to breathe life into those deeds 
and that service, for they live and move and have their 
being in the peace, the power and the glory of our 
Commonwealth and nation. History shall have eternal 
care of the record of his works ; her vigilance shall keep 
the letters she has herself inscribed bright as the stars 
which mark the pathways of the immortal; his name 
shall live upon the lips of all who shall love the Com- 
monwealth, and cherish and revere the lessons of her 
citizenship. Yet love ever seeks some visible remem- 
brance of a presence that has faded from the sight. The 

29 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

poet is minister to the soul, but the divine genius of 
sculptor and painter can best give expression to the 
loving memories of the heart. 

And novyr again the figure of a statesman, tireless in 
his service to the State, rises before the sight of the gen- 
erations w^ho knev/ him, and the generations yet unborn 
shall knovsr the ever-living presence of a great past, made 
visible inspiration of their ow^n days. To such high pur- 
pose the memorial bronze which wdth reverent hand we 
unveil to-day shall speak to the coming ages. 

This hour, when our nation is secure in impregnable 
power, serene in universal peace and honor, might lead 
us to question the recitals of the historian, to distrust the 
annals of those days of doubt and darkness through 
which our nation came to its own redemption; for living 
lips no longer sustain the fierce debate, the threats of 
impending conflict, the outbursts of implacable controversy 
that stirred the thought and tried the souls of men when 
Nathauiiel Prentiss Banks, son of the soil of Massachu- 
setts, and by virtue of her spirit bom leader of men, 
had commanding part in making our country what it is, 
— in its constitution and in truth a nation of free men. 
The impressive story of this life engages and holds 
our present thought, gives purpose to these ceremonies 
that shall far outrun the brief hour that they occupy. 
The life of General Banks is the lesson of the splendid 
possibilities and perfect realization of American citizenship, 
30 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

for no fortuitous advantage of birth or opportunity raised 
him to an eminence to which any American may not 
aspire. Senator Hoar, wisest and kindliest philosopher of 
our time, has said he was "an example of what a gen- 
erous ambition can accomplish for the humblest child of 
the republic." 

He was bom at Waltham, in the county of Middle- 
sex, on the 30th of January, 1816, the eldest of seven 
children, his father a competent mechanic, but without 
means to provide educational advantages for his son other 
than those of the elementary schools, not then developed 
to the high standards of to-day. From his early boy- 
hood the gaining of a livelihood was the first necessity 
of his thought, and this period of his life challenges our 
careful observation, — a time of great influence, it is said, 
in the formation of character ; but it were more in 
accord with the truth if we say that such circumstances 
do but reveal real qualities which can only be manifested 
by the trial of enviroimient and the tests of self-reliance, 
in most cases postponed until years of maturity. Dom- 
inating the limitations of his youth, he gave assurance of 
that great future which he already grasped in making 
himself master of opportunities which he made possible 
through constancy of purpose and ceaseless and intelligent 
study and industry. 

With his parents he sought employment in the factories 
of Lowell, and this first labor gave him that sobriquet 

31 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

of affection which the people adopted, and half in earnest, 
and half in kindly jest, the name of the " bobbin boy '* 
followed him through life. 

His youthful tasks were long, spent in joint servitude 
with the mechanism of loom and spindle, but they con- 
stantly sang to his prophetic ear of the limitless possibil- 
ities of labor, of industry, of self-reliance and of courage. 
Scant were his moments for the study of books, after 
twelve hours of laborious service, but in all ages the 
fitful evening firelight and dim Hame of the rush taper 
have made luminous the pages of learning, and have cast 
their rays forward and far over the pathway that leads 
upward to the heights of exalted fame. 

With an earnestness that knew no fatigue in the quest 
he sought the enlightenment of good books, and spent 
such hours as he might call his own in the company of 
the great teachers of all ages. The English classics were 
his delight, and he acquired such knowledge of Latin as 
to enable him to read wdth some facility the great authors 
of that tongue. He diligently studied Spanish, and with 
a curious prescience declared that the day would come 
when America must have intimate association with the 
people of that race. His early and constant study of 
the poets, of the historians and philosophers doubtless 
gave him, by the aid of his retentive memory, that mental 
equipment, that fullness of knowledge, that admirable style, 
which have given his State papers and his public ad- 
32 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

dresses an assured place with the best that our Elnglish 
literature preserves. 

By the kindness of friends he had access to the stores 
of learning in the Boston Athenaeum, and there his few 
holidays were passed in studious delight, and his long 
journeys homeward in the evening after days of such 
enlightenment were, in truth, in the company of the stars 
which shone above and before him. 

The stern necessities of life kept his hands as closely 
occupied as his mind ; apprenticed as a machinist he be- 
came an expert journeyman. 

In 1 839 he assumed the proprietorship of the " Mid- 
dlesex Reporter," and as editor prosecuted this first literary 
venture with success for three years. He read law, and 
was duly admitted to the bar, but never engaged in 
practice. Other occupations, more congenial to his taste 
and for which he was doubtless better fitted, fully engaged 
even his intense intellectual energies. The lecture plat- 
form gave him earliest opportunity to try his forensic 
powers, and it was manifest that limitations in education 
had been more than compensated by industry and mental 
attairmient; his speech was graceful, natural, vigorous, and 
adorned by that versatility and accuracy of phrase that 
can be acquired only by vsdse and appreciative acquaint- 
ance with the best authors. It is related that after the 
delivery of a lecture at Salem a delighted auditor inquired 
from what university he had been graduated, to which 

33 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

with apt humor he replied, "From a college with a 
water wheel in the basement." 

His genial, candid nature, the enthusiasm of his youth, 
his energy and evident talents gained him the confidence 
and regard of men of influence, and among the most 
fortunate of these associations was the friendship of the 
Hon. Robert Rantoul, collector of the port of Boston, 
afterwards United States district attorney, and later sen- 
ator. This eminent scholar and lawyer offered the young 
student free access to his private and professional library, 
encouraged and aided him in his literary studies, and by 
example and conversation taught him much of that refine- 
ment of thought and diction which was afterwards the 
marvel of those admiring critics who knew the meagre- 
ness of the school education which he had enjoyed. His 
intensely virile voice was of extraordinary charm, of mar- 
velous compass, sweeping an audience to exalted enthu- 
siasm in a resistless torrent of stirring eloquence ; again, 
captivating all opposition by the spell of persuasive argu- 
ment or moving appeal that no auditor could resist; and 
this power survived all the infirmities of age. Even in 
the chill of decrepitude which enfeebled all his physical 
energies, when he rose before an audience the fire of 
youth rekindled, and 

Pale flashes seemed to rise 
As when the northern skies 
Gleam in December. 
34 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

Talents such as he possessed proved his aptitude and 
justified his ambition for public service, and now the 
field of the great achievements of his life aw^adted him, — 
a field of future trial and conflict, where no man might 
dare to enter £uid hope to survive without the courage 
of conviction; nor could one expect to be sustained by 
party name or party prestige, for in the great moral issue 
then impending the bonds of political organization were 
to be dissolved and fused in the fires that consumed all 
but the elemental principle upon which the nation was 
divided, however the fact might be concealed by specious 
assurance, conciliatory statute or party platform. 

At the outset of his career he resolutely determined 
upon that line of conduct which he declared had con- 
trolled his every public act, when in answer to inter- 
rogatories put to him when candidate for speaker of the 
national House he said : — 

In my brief period of public life, not altogether a quiet one, 
I have relied upon myself alone, and 1 have done that under cJl 
circumstances which my convictions taught me to be right. 

He first appeared as party advocate in support of the 
candidacy of Van Buren, thus allying himself with the 
Democracy, which in Massachusetts was tending toward 
a temporary affiliation with the Free Soil Party, which 
ultimately formed the coalition by which the old Whigs 
were driven from a power so long restraining, by its 

35 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

prestige and the mighty name of Webster, the irresistible 
sentiment of the people of Massachusetts against any ex- 
tension of the curse of slavery to new States and terri- 
tories, or any further recognition of an institution now 
become detestable and abhorred, especially through the 
enactment of the fugitive slave law. 

In 1848, in his thirty-third year, after repeated cam- 
paigns, he was elected to the State Legislature, and was 
returned almost without contest for three further terms. 
Through the coalition in 1 85 1 , Henry Wilson, as a Free 
Soiler, was chosen president of the Senate, and Banks, 
as a Democrat, speaker of the House, and re-elected in 
1852. This coalition and transitory alliance of expe- 
diency, in large part consisting of men of little other 
prominence or station, incongruous in its past, and with 
no hope of the future, had rendered an important and 
essential service to the country in the election of Sumner 
to the Senate. It was looked upon, nevertheless, without 
confidence or respect by all who knew its true con- 
stituents. Banks himself, with shrewd humor, sciid to 
Governor Boutwell : — 

It is almighty queer that the people of this Commonwealth 
have put their government into the hands of men who have no 
last and usual place of abode. 

As speaker of the House he gained new prestige and 
respect; impartial, courteous and firm, he displayed an 
36 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

exact and exhaustive knowledge of parliamentary law, 
and his administration was universally conceded to be 
that of an ideal presiding officer. 

y Another political organization gained quick and extraor- 
dinary ascendency in the State, adding further embar- 
rassment to the disintegrating political parties of the times. 
So insidious was the power of this secret organization, 
known in name as the Know Nothing party, that the 
Free Soilers dared not openly oppose it; indeed, many, 
from motives of policy, surreptitiously — sometimes 
avowedly — joined its ranks. It cannot be doubted that 
Banks and Henry Wilson, forced by the exigency of 
the times and in the hope of ultimately aiding the Free 
Soil cause, became members of the organization, or per- 
mitted themselves to be so considered. They certainly 
realized that an organization founded upon intolerant 
religious proscription was so false and hostile to the spirit 
of our American government that it could not survive ; its 
disintegration was inevitable, and after a brief supremacy 
it passed from all participation in the government, and 
scarce an apologist for its existence can now be found. 
General Banks himself, by his own leadership, finally 
redeemed the State from a reign of bigotry unworthy of 
our annals, and now happily forgotten. 

His choice as president of the constitutional convention 
of 1853, when thirty-seven years of age, he rightly 
esteemed to be the most gratifying incident of his life, 

37 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

replete as it was with evidences of public confidence 
rarely in a full lifetime accorded to any one man. Con- 
stitutional conventions of Massachusetts have always 
assembled her most learned and most eminent citizens; 
the cunning politician has found there no fruitful field 
for his small ambition, no opportunity for those rewards 
which are the objects of his self-seeking efforts ; and so 
the determination, or modification in form or tenor, of 
the organic law of the State has been left to those who 
have recognized the necessity of preserving its wise 
restraints, and have not suffered them to be relaxed be- 
cause of ill-considered or injudicious popular desire. 

In this convention, which has been designated as the 
ablest body of men that ever met in Massachusetts, 
there sat, among the many of great learning and scholar- 
ship, Richard H. Dana, Jr., George S. Hillard, Marcus 
Morton, father and son, Simon Greenleaf, Rufus Choate, 
Charles Sumner, Caleb Cushing and the elder Robert 
Rantoul. To be given preferment over them, and by 
their choice, was a signal honor and a gracious recog- 
nition of character and ability, — peculiarly gratifying to 
this self-taught man, who, in spite of his success, felt the 
want of that generous education which had been denied 
him. With perfect dignity, with a manner befitting the 
grave proceedings, he marshalled the brilliant and power- 
ful arguments of the ablest and most leamed lawyers and 
laymen of the State in such a manner that each had the 
38 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

fullest and fairest display and consideration. " The col- 
lege of the mill wheel " found her graduate sitting as equal 
among equals with the doctors of law and philosophy, 
who wore the gowns of our most ancient university. 

The extension of slavery in the west, the arrogant 
demand of the slaveholder of the south, open threats of 
secession, fitful flashes of the fires of war, flamed across 
the dark clouds of sectional and party controversy, as, 
long before the storm, one may note its approach in the 
heavens. Webster, by force of his overwhelming expo- 
sition of constitutional rights and obligations, had reassured 
the south and restrained the north. Now the Missouri 
Compromise was repudiated ; its provisions spurned and 
cast aside; the Supreme Court had held it to be a void 
compact, by which neither party was bound. Massa- 
chusetts saw the wretched slave seek sanctuary under the 
shadow of Bunker Hill, only to be dragged from his 
refuge, and with fetters upon his limbs delivered over to 
his vengeful and merciless master, to be returned to a 
hopeless captivity. The sentiment of Massachusetts could 
not longer be repressed. Whittier sang to her of the 
pathos and horror of slavery, and appealed to her mercy, 
her love of liberty and her courage. Lowell, with ex- 
quisite irony, in prose and verse laid bare the fatal fallacy 
of the original constitutional evasion of the truth, and 
the later political subterfuges and compromises, which per- 
petuated a crime which outraged the law of man and God. 

39 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

In her inmost heart Massachusetts knew that the nation 
itself must perish if the infection which corrupted the very 
bonds of the Union was not utterly cast out by legis- 
lation or by war. Sumner, who had dared to utter the 
dread truth, was stricken down by the shameful blow of 
a coward, who had thought that the dawning of the 
day might be stayed if only he might stifle the voice 
that proclcdmed its coming. 

Bravely, with a purpose now irrevocable, but without 
its open avowal, Massachusetts looked forward, anxious, 
depressed, but without fear to the inevitable conflict. 
Emerson had said: "The fugitive slave law did much 
to unglue the eyes of men, and now the Nebraska bill 
leaves us staring." With careful forethought she selected 
her champions, hoping against hope that her battles might 
be fought to victory in the peaceful halls of legislation, 
but determined that there, or on bloody fields, the battle 
must be fought. 

Champion such as she sought she found in her own 
son, Nathaniel P. Banks. True to every duty she had 
cast upon him, she called him to that of graver moment 
than he yet had essayed, and confident she sent him her 
representative to the thirty-third Congress, there, in the 
words of one of his later utterances, to maintain that 
"for a State inflexibly determined to submit to nothing 
wrong there is no safer rule of action than to ask nothing 
that is not right." 
40 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

In such spirit he went forth from Massachusetts to 
gain that ascendency in the federal councils that he had 
won among associates and rivals in his own State. Con- 
flicting sentiments and opinions had wrought utter con- 
fusion in party policy ; party names had lost influence, 
even significance ; in such a chaos only individual con- 
science, courage and capacity could survive. He was 
elected on a Know Nothing ticket, but made no pretense 
of his own sympathy or affiliation with that party ; on 
the contrary, in the campaign of 1855 he presided over 
the Massachusetts Republican convention. 

In the contest for speaker in the thirty-fourth Congress, 
Banks of Massachusetts, tried and proved by his first 
term, — the most notable incident of which was his oppo- 
sition, though elected a Democrat, to the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill, — was offered as a candidate, not by party caucus, 
but because of recognized courage without arrogance, and 
a spirit that demanded and conceded only what was 
right. 

Breathless interest attended the election ; upon its dec- 
laration was to be determined whether antislavery senti- 
ment was to find aggressive expression in Congress, or 
whether laws dictated by sectional policies were further 
^to enslave the very conscience of the nation. In the 
intensity of the excitement, prolonged through months of 
balloting, and requiring no less than one hundred and 
thirty-three roll calls, Banks never for a moment lost his 

41 



"N 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

self-poise, courage and candor. Frankly and fearlessly 
answering interrogatories as to his conduct if elected, he 
answered that no party dictation should control his action, 
— that his duty as he saw it should be his only guide. 
Of Kansas and Nebraska he declared, with thrilling em- 
phasis, that there must " be made good to the people of 
the United States the prohibition for which the southern 
States contracted and received a consideration. I am," 
he said, " for the substantial restoration of the prohibition 
as it has existed since 1820." 

New adherents gathered to his support as other can- 
didates failed and fell under the fierce struggle of faction, 
prejudice, passion, wrath and fear. At the end, the 
advocates of slavery, and their associates who hated the 
system but feared secession or war, had united upon 
Aiken of South Carolina, known as the greatest slave- 
holder of the south. Truly it was an impressive spec- 
tacle. With bated breath the country looked upon this 
final conflict between Banks on the one side, who had 
dignified labor by the service of his own hand, had 
glorified it by the inspiration of intellect and eloquence, 
and, on the other hand, Aiken, born to a condition and 
sentiment that made the sweat and blood of humcui 
beings the capital and substance of his personal and 
political fortune. 

North and south and west the tidings sped, that this 
man of northern sentiment and of northern courage, the 
42 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

"iron man" of Massachusetts, had been chosen to direct 
the policies of the people's tribunal in the House of 
Congress, where the wildest outbursts of resistless enthu- 
siasm were manifest in spite of bitter denunciation, sullen 
murmurs, even hisses of the mortified and defeated auto- 
crats of the south. But let no American forget to hold 
in honor and respect the magnanimous conscience of 
Aiken himself. Victim of a curse to which he had 
been born, the soul of a patriot broke from the bondage 
which held him as he rose and stilled the shameful 
tumult about him by declaring that the will of the 
people's representatives was supreme; that the election 
commanded the obedience of all, and that he first de- 
manded the honor and right to lead the chosen ruler of 
the House to the chair of his rightful authority. 

Under such auspices, under auguries of such reassuring 
promise, — the first real victory of Republican antislavery 
sentiment, — the new speaker assumed the duties of an 
office in responsibility and power, under our system of 
congressional government, second only to those of the 
President himself. 

A great victory had been won, and the students of 
that stormy period of our history unite in the avowal that 
by no other hand could the standard of the great cause 
have been borne to its triumph. With just and equal 
recognition of leaders of each policy of public opinion he 
made appointments to his corrunittee; with that tact 

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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

which always characterized him he consulted Senator 
Benton of Missouri, then in Washington, and advised 
him that he should appoint General Quitman of Missis- 
sippi upon the committee of military affairs ; to which 
the rugged old politician, pleased by the confidence of 
this young man, said of Quitman : " He is a fire-eater; 
put him on, put him on, but see that he is mighty well 
guarded." The speaker blandly replied that he had 
already taken that necessary precaution. 

As speaker he presided with such courtesy, dignity, 
incomparable knowledge of the laws of deliberative 
assemblies, with such inflexible courage and perfect fair- 
ness, that never was a ruling reversed by the House; 
he ruled not by any " magic of the gavel," but by virtue 
of force and fairness, which commanded respectful assent ; 
and when he resigned his authority to the power that 
gave it, he departed from among his associates with 
their universal ciffection, admiration and confidence. 

His administration marked the first incident of that 
momentous period described by Breckinridge of Ken- 
tucky, high-souled, generous patriot of the southland, in 
his feeling eulogy of General Banks when in the capitcJ 
at Washington he said : — 

When Massachusetts stepped to the front, and, as the begin- 
ning of the leadership in the tremendous struggle, Nathaniel 
Prentiss Bauiks became speaker of the House of Representatives, 
— practically from 1855 to 1875, — the House of Representa- 

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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

lives registered the decrees of Massachusetts, and the Republic 
of America followed the lead of the old Bay CommonwecJth. 
I do not exaggerate, Mr. Speaker, I think, when I say that from 
1855 to 1875, whether it was for weal or woe, whether it 
was wisely or unwisely done, — men differ and historians may 
dispute, — but as a matter of fact Massachusetts led America, 
emd led her with an audacity, an aggressiveness, with a skill and 
eloquence, with a power and force which have never been sur- 
passed, in all the tide of time, in the leadership of a great people. 

In this supreme apostrophe there is nothing of the 
exaggeration of rhetoric ; it is historically true that Banks 
of Massachusetts had stayed the tide, and that around 
him there crystallized positive hope of the triumph of the 
new party of freedom, whose elemental principle of faith 
was the repression of slavery, if not its extermination. 

The seceders from the convention that had nominated 
Fillmore, calling themselves the North Americans, de- 
clared Banks their nominee for the Presidency. This 
he declined, and they then nominated Fremont. An 
acute and profoundly learned American historian has 
said : — 

Never in our history, and probably never in the history of the 
world, has a more pure, a more disinterested, a more intelligent 
body of men banded together for a noble political object than 
these who now enrolled themselves under the Republican banner. 

From the cloisters of study and college, Felton and 
Silliman, Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, Curtis, Irving and 

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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

Willis, upon platform and in the market place, exhorted 
their fellow citizens to join the cause of Fremont and 
freedom. The religious press adjured the people to 
" Vote as you pray, and pray as you vote " in a holy 
cause. In the fervor of such exalted enthusiasm the 
Republican party entered upon its first national cam- 
paign. Banks, sagacious leader, perfectly in touch w^ith 
the popular sentiment, looking to the ultimate victory 
which he knew must now be postponed, recalled from 
Congress, became a candidate for Governor against the 
invincible Gardner in his last battle for his dead cause. 
Banks realized that nomination under the Republican 
name would arouse too many hostilities, excite too much 
apprehension, alienate too many associates, to bring 
success. In purpose and in ardent faith an antislavery 
Republican, and fighting for their cause, his nomination 
carried only the prestige and power of his ovm popu- 
larity and his own national and State renown. His 
election silenced the last whisper of the Know Nothing 
councils, and, in fact, established the Republican party 
triumphantly in the State. Again in him the hope of 
the people of the north found realization. 

And now the second epoch of his memorable public 
service began. Chief executive of the State which was 
pre-eminently the leader of the new cause, he had need 
to be wise in counsel, discreet in conduct, fearless in 
thought, inflexible of purpose, — else the great destiny 
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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

of the State might be subverted. His administration in 
this troublous time was conducted with a calmness, 
stability of judgment, that proved him a true statesman. 
He foresaw, and beyond all other men prepared for, 
that armed rebellion of desperate and wrathful southern 
States which finally broke in all its awful terrors upon 
a nation, for the most part, ill-prepared to sustain its 
shock. 

His first inaugural address, in words of prophecy, 
courage and patriotism, declared that — 

The preservation of the Union is among the highest of politi- 
cal duties; the vitality of the Union is in the recognition of the 
rights of the States; the affirmation of their existence may become 
the surest means of perpetuating the Union itself. These are 
privileges that are worth a contest ; such at least has been the 
immortal example of immortal men. 

His message announcing the removal of Judge Loring 
from his office as judge of probate, while it stated a 
sufficiently sound technical ground, was nevertheless due 
to popular condemnation of a positive official duty in 
his rendition, as a federal magistrate, of the fugitive slave 
Burns. But Governor Banks was far from being the 
mere creature of the popular will; he knew well how 
to lead it, but he did not fear to oppose it in the 
discharge of his public duty. In his message he forci- 
bly reminded the Legislature of the exclusive jurisdic- 

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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

tion of the federal law within its constitutional province, 
and pointed out the error and evil consequences of 
futile or unjust State legislation in conflict with national 
authority. 

He urged with unanswerable justice and logic that 
the ill-considered proscriptions of the act of May, 1855, 
intended to prevent the execution of the fugitive slave 
law, should be modified so that they should recognize 
the federal law and yield a necessary obedience to it. 
The Massachusetts statute providing that any person 
who shall "act as counsel or attorney for any claimant 
of any alleged fugitive from service or labor shall be 
deemed to have resigned any commission from the 
Commonwealth that he may possess, and he shall there- 
after be incapacitated from appearing as counsel or 
attorney in the courts of this Commonwealth," — this 
the Governor declared to be "inconsistent with the 
dignity, as it is vydth the professional traditions, of the 
State, with which, in this connection, the illustrious 
names of Adams and Quincy are inseparably associated." 

The statute further provided that any member of the 
volunteer militia who should in any manner act or aid 
in the seizure, detention or rendition of a person claimed 
as a fugitive from service or labor should be punished 
as a felon. The obvious conflict of duty thus confront- 
ing a Massachusetts soldier was pointed out in emphatic 
terms of condemnation, the Governor declaring that 
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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

"every order issued from this department of the gov- 
ermnent to the military force of the State must be 
obeyed." 

He defined the dignity and character of judicial serv- 
ice in a message rising in sentiment to the lofty judicial 
ideals of Choate, which had inspired the constitutional 
convention : — 

Fixed compensation for public service is one of the important 
features which distinguish the Republiczin from despotic forms of 
government ; to no class of public service does it apply with so 
much force as to judicial officers ; the just determination of judicial 
causes requires the union of rare ability and the highest integrity, 
great intellectual capacity and extended and varied mental culture. 
They are invested with life tenures of office, and are expected 
chiefly to abstain from active participation in business transactions. 
It is not possible nor expedient to pay the most competent men 
as much for such service as would be received by them in suc- 
cessful professional life, but they have a right to demand, accept- 
ing judicial positions, that such compensation shall be made for 
their services as will enable them to maintain, with economy, the 
dignity of their position and the honor of the State. I make this 
recommendation, not so much for the judges as for the people, 
in order that they may select for their servants the best men, 
whether with or without fortune, and who when thus selected 
and strengthened by experience and study for the discharge of 
their duties may be able, without injury to themselves, to continue 
in service and in the enjoyment of official honors with which they 
have been invested, with their own consent and the choice of the 
people. 

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Other subjects with which he dealt in inaugurals and 
messages were those of the constitutional restrictions 
upon executive pardon, presenting a commentary which 
displayed wide legal learning, and a masterly discussion 
of the administration of the criminal law. He con- 
sidered at great length the restoration of the Lyman 
Reformatory School, and outlined and forecast all the 
humane and protective features of the probation laws 
now enacted, and in operation, with universal approval. 
He was ardently interested in the advancement of the 
public schools and of the higher education, and gave 
intimate and constant influence to every such cause, by 
force of his own enthusiasm procuring a just appropria- 
ation from the State that established the Agassiz Mu- 
seum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, and the 
creation of a fund to aid the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology. He advocated the maintenance of a State 
training ship, saying, " there is no surer avenue to indi- 
vidual and national prosperity than that which lies in 
the direction of an extension of commerce." 

The internal interests of the State were in his con- 
stant thought and care, and none escaped his considera- 
tion or suggestion, but his ears were not deaf to the 
angry murmurs, to the challenges, that were cast like 
hostile arrows from south to north, and again cast back 
in anger. He knew too well the temper of the time, 
and the effect almost certain to follow if a Republican 
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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

President should be elected in succession to Buchanan. 
With prudence, but without exciting alarm or encourag- 
ing a spirit of war, he provided an equipment for the 
militia unapproached in perfection by that of any other 
loyal State. As Commander-in-Chief he reviewed the 
greatest muster of the troops of the State then held, 
near the field of the Concord fight, believing that uncon- 
sciously the citizen soldiers would there breathe a spirit 
of which the State might stand in need again. The 
first blood shed on that new 19th of April justified both 
his apprehension and his faith. Andrew, first to sustain 
the armed authority of the government with an energy 
and patriotism beyond the measure of our praise, sent 
from Massachusetts troop upon troop of our militia 
equipped with every necessary weapon or munition of 
war; but for the wise forethought of Governor Banks 
this efficient body of soldiers had not been the first to 
give assurance to President Lincoln of that loyalty which 
was to endure to the end. 

Retiring from the office of Governor, he delivered a 
valedictory address of singular dignity, wisdom and just 
comment on the trend of public affairs ; something of 
melancholy apprehension tinged its phrase, but a confi- 
dence in his State and the preservation of the Union 
was manifest in its every sentence. He warned his 
fellow citizens of the dangers that threatened the repub- 
lic, but no fear was in his heart, full of love and ven- 

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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

eration for the State he had served so faithfully and so 
well. In tender farewell he said : — 

To whatever part of the country I may go, I shall stand 
within the circle of her influence ; the enduring monuments of her 
fcir-reaching sagacity, her enterprise and capital will everywhere 
surround me, to remind me of my origin and her fame and 
power. 

Retiring from office he assumed important duties with 
the Illinois Central Railroad, whose franchise rights had 
been the subject of litigation in that State, where Abra- 
ham Lincoln had appeared as counsel for local interests 
and Robert Rantoul for the corporation, whose son 
relates that upon his first visit to the White House 
President Lincoln recalled, with respect and admiration, 
his first acquaintance with a Massachusetts lawyer. 

Last of all men would Governor Banks have per- 
mitted private interest, or opportunity for pecuniary bene- 
fit now open to him, to withhold his offering a patriot's 
life to his country's cause. The flag of Sumter had 
been hauled down by its defenders with the ominous 
beat of war drums, that was never to cease, until that 
flag rose again, triumphant emblem of a reunited nation. 

Almost with the first call to arms there came from 
the hand of the President a commission as major general 
of volunteers. It is certain that Governor Banks, realiz- 
ing his want of military training or experience, would 
have declined the tendered honor, but the President 
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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

insisted, for he well knew that no name in Massachu- 
setts would rally so many of her citizens to her battle 
flags. Whatever were the misfortunes or successes that 
attended General Banks, there was no hour so dark, no 
discouragement so overwhelming, that his stirring voice 
and unfaltering courage fciiled to arouse a new hope, or to 
restore shaken confidence. On battle field, as in forum, 
his inspiring voice reanimated the broken ranks, urged for- 
ward the charge, and none were laggards where he led. 

His first command was upon the upper Potomac and 
in the Shenandoah valley, fated to be the debatable 
ground of the war, swept by the varying fortunes of 
battle, desolated by fire and sword. 

In 1862 he held command of the Fifth Corps of the 
Army of Virginia, where he met the swift and sudden 
attack of Jackson, — most resourceful, most audacious of 
captains, — and here he sustained the shock of unequal 
battle at Cedar Mountain. Later he was assigned to 
the command of the Second Army Corps and in charge 
of the defences of Washington, and in these anxious days 
the glamour of his name availed more to restore popular 
confidence in the north than parks of artillery or regi- 
ments of men. The President himself, sorely tried by 
anxieties, the like of which no man ever bore, sought 
constant conference with this man of Massachusetts, and 
the midnight hours were witness of the trust and reliance 
of Lincoln, whose judgment of men never erred. 

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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

He was sent with the expedition to New Orleans, 
relieving General Butler. In April, 1863, his army in- 
vested Port Hudson, memorable scene of determined 
defence, — its plains and heights hallowed by the blood 
of bravest men, made glorious by gallantry unsurpassed 
in the dread recitals of war. Vicksburg yielded to in- 
exorable and relentless siege and assault. The surrender 
of Port Hudson followed, and the soldiers of General 
Banks, as victors, first saw the waves of the " Father of 
Waters flow unvexed to the sea." The President, in a 
personal letter, wrote : — 

The final stroke in opening the Mississippi never should and 
never will be forgotten. 

The calamitous Red River expedition was undertaken 
without General Banks's approval. As a soldier, unwa- 
vering, he obeyed the orders he received ; without fear or 
hesitation he marched to what he himself deemed inevi- 
table defeat. Grant, in his final authoritative analysis of 
the war, has said : — 

It is but just to Banks, however, to say that his expedition was 
ordered from Washington, and he was in no way responsible, 
except for the conduct of it. I make no criticism on this point. 
He opposed the expedition. 

Upon his return from this ill-starred campaign he con- 
tinued in command of the Department of the Gulf. 
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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

Armed rebellion in Louisiana had been overthrown; 
scarce a desultory shot of skulking guerrilla could be 
heard within its borders, but grave problems confronted 
him in the inextricable difficulties, almost impossibilities, of 
the restoration of a State government within the Union; 
a confusion of civil and military authority v\dthout parallel 
in history, conditions without precedent of constitutional 
guidance, were about him. No human sagacity could 
then have evolved a plan that would insure representation 
of true public sentiment, or could at that time have estab- 
lished and secured a just civil goverimient. At last he 
sought release from duties that calmer judgment and time 
alone could discharge. 

He returned to his own Commonwealth, which, in 
triumph and in misfortune, had followed and sustained 
him with a confidence and love that never abated. At 
times when his people were in doubt, verging upon despair, 
his return to Massachusetts had been welcomed by eager 
thousands of his fellow citizens. His voice lifted up the 
faint hearted, the multitudes who assembled to hear of 
repulse sustained, of hope long deferred, went from his 
presence with tumultuous cheers, confident of ultimate 
victory, howsoever long it might be stayed in its coming. 

Again at home, the repose of private life was not to be 
his. Doubtless he would not then have wished it. He 
was presented as candidate for Congress, and, without 
serious opposition, re-elected until 1877, excepting the 
canvass of 1 872, when even his loyal and admiring con- 

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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

stituency faltered and would not follow in his support 
of Greeley's dangerous and mischievous opposition to 
Grant. 

Again, in 1888, he was elected against Colonel Hig- 
ginson, under conditions of very great and peculiar political 
interest. With the term of this election his service in the 
national House came to its close. 

During these later periods he was constantly recognized 
as one of the members of greatest distinction. From the 
galleries his figure was among the first to be sought out; 
were he to speak, again the throngs that knew the spell 
of his eloquence crowded chamber and corridor and 
hung breathless upon his words. In debate he yielded 
place to no man. 

He had lived and acted in the mighty onrush of events 
that had threatened to sweep a nation to its destruction, 
but instead had borne it upward to an inviolable Union, 
an impregnable security and power; in the times when 
the bonds of common patriotism were reuniting, he strove 
earnestly, with thought and effort, to establish that per- 
fect concord of heart, faith and hope, closer than con- 
stitution or treaty can bind or compel, wrought out by 
an awful trial, that had taught once warring brothers that 
the conscience, virtue and valor that had animated them 
all were the very essence of their kinship. 

As chairman of the committee on foreign affciirs, he 
advocated the extension of our territory into the icy 
waters of the Pacific, where the vast immeasurable re- 
56 



DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

sources of Alaska have become tributary to the wealth 
of our people. He reported from his committee that 
aggressively American bill, which declared the right of 
every citizen to renounce all foreign allegiance, and, in 
case of its denial, authorized the President to suspend 
commercial relations vsdth, and to arrest and detain any 
citizen of, such government, in reprisal. 

His energies, his talent and his service had been given 
to his country ; without fortune of his own, he accepted, 
not without consideration of the livelihood it afforded, the 
honorable and responsible office of United States marshal, 
willingly and gratefully conferred upon him by Presidents 
Hayes and Arthur. 

He was elected to the Massachusetts Senate of 1874, 
and there ardently supported the repeal of the vote of 
censure upon Sumner for his just and magnanimous reso- 
lution that led to the restoration of the captured confed- 
erate battle flags, which had declared that "national 
unity and good-will among fellow citizens can be assured 
only through oblivion of past differences," — and Massa- 
chusetts, in contrition, renounced an act as unjust to her 
illustrious son as it was unworthy of her better impulses, 
and repugnant to her generous fame. 

Thus the last sentiment of his public life was that of 
its beginning, — the maintenance of a great nation of free 
men, bound together by a common love of country and 
justice, without taint of bitter memory, without thought 
of enmity or distrust. 

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DEDICATION OF BANKS STATUE 

His advancing years were blessed by the universal 
affection and respect of his people; his loved presence 
was the pride and joy of his townsmen; their regard 
was reflected in reverent devotion of little children. His 
footsteps, when they grew enfeebled, were guided •with. 
tenderest attention to his home, which was in the hearts 
of the people of the place of his birth, the sanctuary of 
his perfect and constant happiness. 

His power to sway the minds of men, to lead them 
wheresoever his voice might call, was almost without 
example in New England, and might have raised him to 
dizziest heights of personal ambition and aggrandizement, 
but he sought no renown, he craved no reward, save 
that which might be part of the fame and glory of his 
State and nation, and there his memory is secure, im- 
mortal in the lofty ideals which Massachusetts has con- 
ceived, and to which her future days are committed. 

Lowell has told us that — 

The hero — the wise man, the artist, all build their own 
monuments, broad based as continents, lasting as love eind rever- 
ence. Columbus has a hemisphere for commemoration. The 
obedient planets write forever in the sky the epitaphs of Coper- 
nicus and Newton. 

As our flag shall lift on the viands that proudly bear 
it, its stars shall flash from sea to sea, through the still 
watches of the night; and each returning day shall for- 
ever renew the lustrous memory of its defenders. 

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